Snapshots
by LemonStar
Summary: ..Daryl/Beth.. "Fifty Four Days" World. Daryl shakes his head and his eyes land on Eli and like Beth, he seems unable to stop looking at their son. Their son. Beth smiles at just the thought. Who would have ever thought that she and Daryl would be here, together, and would have a baby together?
1. Beth & Mulligan

…

Beth can't stop staring at him. He's perfect. Absolutely perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, blue eyes. The faintest wisps of light hair on his head. They don't have a scale, but Beth thinks he's around eight pounds. Not only is he perfect, but he's healthy. They both are.

Her son is a miracle. An absolute miracle.

She wonders who he will eventually grow to look like. Will he have her and Greene look or Daryl and the Dixon look? Right now, he's only four hours old so he looks a bit more like a potato, as Daryl would say; a perfectly healthy and perfect potato – but a potato nonetheless.

Daryl is in the chair next to the bed, his head resting on his fisted hand, fast asleep. Beth has already taken a short nap while Daryl had looked after their son before she woke up so Eli could be fed, and now, as Daryl sleeps, Beth is in their bed, their son in her arms, mother and son just blinking at one another. Beth can't imagine herself ever getting tired of looking at their son.

"My little Eli," she whispers then as her finger runs over his small knuckles and Eli shifts in her arms, but he remains quiet, still just looking at her. She smiles and brushes her lips across his forehead. "I love you so much, my little Eli." She then closes her eyes and inhales his scent. Rosita and Anna have bathed both Beth and Eli and now, Eli smells that familiar newborn scent that Aiden had smelled like not that long ago.

In this new world surrounded by so much death, it makes Beth want to cry that newborn babies still smell like how newborn babies are supposed to smell like.

Eli adjusts in her arms again and one of his tiny feet frees from the blanket he's wrapped in.

"No, no, we can't have that," Beth tells her son with a smile and tucks his foot inside once again. "We can't have you get cold." Eli lets out some sort of huff at that – as if he doesn't particularly agree with that – and Beth smiles, kissing his forehead again.

Daryl shifts in his chair, adjusting his head on his fist, but he remains asleep.

There is a soft knock on the closed bedroom door and Beth lifts her head to look at it.

"Come in," she quietly calls out – not wanting to disturb both Daryl and Eli.

She smiles when the door opens just enough for Mulligan to poke his head into the room. He smiles when he sees that she and the baby are both awake. He frowns though when he sees Daryl.

"What the hell is that one asleep for? He didn't push nothin' out of him today," Mulligan says and Beth stops herself before she lets out a laugh.

"Be kind to him," Beth gently warns the older man. "I think I broke his hand earlier."

"Psssh," Mulligan says, stepping into the room. "If he didn't want a broken hand, he should have pulled out 'fore he could knock you up."

Beth smiles at him and then looks down to her son, still smiling. "Thank goodness he didn't," she says.

Mulligan smiles at that, too. "Rosita sent me in here, wonderin' if you wanted more of that tea."

"That would be wonderful," she says and glances towards the empty cup on the table next to the bed.

Mulligan walks around the bed to collect the cup, making sure he doesn't accidently bump into Daryl. He pauses though as he looks down to Eli and he smiles.

"How you feelin'?" Mulligan asks her.

Beth look up at him. "Amazing," she answers honestly. Yes, she's sore and there's still a bit of pain, but she's hardly even noticing it because Eli's in her arms.

Mulligan smiles at that and leans down, pressing a kiss to Beth's head, and the action is so simple, but it causes Beth's eyes to flood with tears nonetheless. She imagines that if her daddy was still alive and here to meet his grandson, he would be doing the exact same thing. And Beth can picture it so perfectly; Hershel standing next to the bed, smiling warmly, kissing Beth on the head.

"I can't thank you enough," Beth says, her voice shaking, as she looks up to Mulligan again. "For letting us stay here with you. You saved all of our lives."

Mulligan is quiet for a moment and it's obvious that he hasn't the first idea how to respond to that.

"Couldn' let you go after I tasted your cookin'," he's finally able to say and Beth laughs softly. "'sides, with Anna and Aiden and now this lil' one, 's good to have kids in this place again. Went a long time without."

His eyes go distant for a moment and Beth knows he's thinking about his family. She has always wanted to ask him, but at the same time, she's never wanted to pry. Was Mulligan ever married? Did he ever have children? She knows that this has been his family's cabin for years and years. Who else in the Mulligan family used to live here?

This man has saved hers and her baby's and her family's lives and there is still so much she doesn't know about him.

"'m gonna go get you some more tea," Mulligan clears his throat, bringing himself to the present. "You need anythin' else?"

Beth shakes her head, a small smile still across her lips. Eli fidgets again and her attention is brought back to him, adjusting him in her arms once more, making sure the blanket is snug around him, and she smiles down at her son, wondering if this feeling of complete amazement she has towards him will ever fade.

"You all saved my life, too," Mulligan says quietly – so quietly, she almost misses it – and Beth turns her head once more to look up at him.

He doesn't say anything further though and with his own small smile, he turns, taking the cup with him. As he passes Daryl, this time, his foot kicks against his. Daryl's eyes instantly spring open and he sits up.

"Wha' is it?" He asks, confused, but already wide awake as his eyes land frantically on Beth and Eli.

"Be with your wife and son," Mulligan tells him as he heads for the door, without looking back. "You shouldn' be sleepin' durin' precious moments like this."

With that, the man leaves the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Daryl leans forward in his chair, rubbing his eyes with the balls of his hands, before looking to Beth and Eli.

"You can go back to sleep," Beth tells him. "We should all get the sleep while we can."

Daryl shakes his head and his eyes land on Eli and like Beth, he seems unable to stop looking at their son.

 _Their_ son. Beth smiles at just the thought. Who would have ever thought that she and Daryl would be here, together, and would have a baby together?

"Nah, Mulligan's right," Daryl says, looking at her now, his eyes warm. "Don't wanna miss anythin'."

…

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 **Thank you so much for reading!**

 **I'm always having random ideas for this universe, so this story will be updated with little vignettes of things I wanted to get out. Each chapter will be short, just around 1000 words or so.**


	2. Aiden & Meg

…

"Do you have to do that in just your boxers?" She asks and Aiden lifts his head, smirking a little when he sees her, standing on the bank of the creek, her hands covering her eyes.

"Are you hungry?" Aiden asks though he knows she is. He is, too.

"Yes," she finally answers after a ridiculously long moment.

"I'm not doing this, dressed, and getting my clothes soaked," Aiden explains though he doesn't really understand why he has to explain. It seems pretty obvious to him as to why he's in the water in nothing, but his boxers.

They are quiet after that. Meg remains standing on the bank, her hands covering her face, as Aiden continues standing in the knee-deep cool water, bent over, his hands in the water, his eyes sharp and his body patient.

He can hear the slight wind moving through the leaves on the trees. He can hear warblers chirping and singing. He can hear the soft, gentle rush of the water around him. He is concentrating on the task in front of him, but he also is able to focus on the sounds around him. Just like he was taught.

He wishes his dad, mom and Daryl were here so they could see. He wishes his _whole_ family was here with him.

Since the time he was young – but old enough to start leaving the yard for more than foraging – his parents and Daryl had been his main teachers outside. In the kitchen, Beth had taught him everything from math to US History and reading everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald. But outside, Daryl taught him to hunt and track and his mom taught him how to defend himself and how to perfect his knife and machete skills and his dad taught him how to laugh and joke and find the happiness in just about any moment.

Aiden's not sure how long he stands there. Fishing without a pole and just your hands can take hours and there isn't anything a person can do to speed it up.

The longer it takes, from the corner of his eye, he can see Meg's hands slowly lower from her face.

He still doesn't know that much about her – just that she is a good person and he knows that, to Beth and the rest of his family, that would be all that does matter. She's his age. Seventeen. And her little "brother", Grant, is about twelve. Aiden doesn't have to ask what happened to the rest of hers and Grant's families that left them out here, alone and wandering aimlessly with no direction or plan.

Aiden knows that the people left in the world, they haven't been nearly as lucky as he and his family have been.

Growing up in these mountains, they've been cut off from the rest of the world and even though he's seventeen, Aiden has still never seen anyone like Meg or Grant. Grant with his curly red hair and Meg with her Asian features. She's beautiful. Aiden can't help but think on that more than he probably should.

He came upon them four days ago and there wasn't even really a discussion once Grant stopped poking his knife in Aiden's ribs and Aiden had assured them both that he wasn't going to hurt either of them. They'd stick together.

It's obvious to Aiden immediately that Meg and Grant aren't from these mountains. They don't know much of anything and when Grant had gone to pick a mushroom the day before as they walked, Aiden had literally slapped it from his hand before Grant ate the poisonous object and dropped dead.

Finally. The fish swims between his fingers and he feels the cold scales on his hands and Meg lets out a gasp as Aiden grasps the fish – a brown trout, he notes – and immediately tosses it out onto the bank next to her. She looks at it as it flops wildly in the grass with wide eyes and then looks to Aiden.

"You just caught a fish," she then states to him.

"It would seem that way," Aiden grins.

"With your bare hands."

"I don't have a pole," he says with a simple shrug.

When he was leaving, Aaron had tried to push the fishing pole in his hands to take with him, but Aiden had pushed it back with a shake of his head. His family will need that far more than he will. He, after all, can catch a fish with his bare hands and is the only one in their family who can.

"How did you learn how to do that?" Meg asks as she watches Aiden now as he pulls himself from the water. She doesn't make a move to cover her eyes again even as his boxers cling to him.

Aiden shrugs. "Plenty of time to practice something until you get it right these days."

Meg looks at him as if she's never seen someone like him before and she then looks back to the fish, no longer flopping as it takes its last few gasping breaths.

Aiden goes towards the small fire still crackling further up the bank, where he stripped from his clothes earlier. He doesn't put them on yet though. He'll let the sun dry him for a bit. He glances into the yellow pup tent they have pitched and where Grant is sleeping inside.

On their run to that town, Crispin, all of those years ago, they had gone through an outdoors store and this tent is from that venture, being taken with Aiden years later now when he has set off on his own for the summer months.

Grant had insisted on keeping watch the night before so Meg and Aiden could get some sleep. The tent is only big enough for two people and while Meg hadn't seemed to have any trouble with sharing a space with him and falling asleep, Aiden had laid awake most of the night, feeling the heat from her body, so close to his, and listening to her deep, steading breaths.

Meg is still standing near the water, still looking to the fish, but she lifts her head when Aiden comes back, now with his knife. The sun is streaming through the leaves on the tree near her, glistening over her long black hair that she has pulled up into a ponytail. She has a mosquito bite that she's been scratching on her jaw and the knees of her jeans are dirty from kneeling on the ground that morning, feeding their fire more twigs.

Aiden's throat feels dry to him and he does his best to clear it. "Uh, want to watch me clean it?" He asks.

Meg then smiles and it's probably only about the third smile she has given him in the days since they've first met.

He feels disgust towards himself for seeing that smile on her face and the sight of it twitching a certain part of his body that he knows his boxers will do nothing to hide.

"Yes," she nods.

"Give me just one more second," Aiden says before heading back towards the fire and grabbing his blue jeans, tugging them back on over his wet legs as casually as he can.

…

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 **Thank you so much for reading and please take a moment to review!**

 **My pinterest is templeton21 and I have a board "Blue Ridge" that is specially for this universe if you're interested.**

 **And if you go on my tumblr - templeton21 - I have posted pictures of Aiden and Meg.**

 **Thank you again!**


	3. Daryl & Beth & Eli

…

"Beth!"

Beth sighs and looks down to baby Eli, comfortable in the sling she has across her chest. "So close," Beth murmurs to her son before turning to see Daryl crossing the yard and coming her way. "Hi, honey," she gives her husband her best – and most innocent – smile.

Daryl isn't swayed though and his frown seems to only deepen. "Where in the hell do you think you're goin'?"

"Just out," Beth replies as casually as she can.

Daryl stares at her for a moment, his eyes narrowing. "Jus' out, huh? You and Eli jus' runnin' a quick errand to the corner store?"

Beth keeps smiling and holds up her basket. "Something like that."

Daryl looks at the basket and then his eyes drift down to Eli in the sling before back to Beth's face. "Can't you 'ave Rosita go for you?" He asks in a softer tone.

"Nope," Beth immediately answers. "I'm going stir crazy, Daryl. I haven't been out of the yard in four months. I _need_ to get out of here for a little bit before I kill someone. Probably you, to be honest," she adds.

Daryl smirks a little at that, but it fades as he continues looking at her. His eyes then go to Eli – four months old now and he is smiling more and they have to watch him like a hawk because everything he picks up goes into his mouth – "it's how he explores the world", the one baby book they have says – and he's sleeping through the night now. Everyone is getting around seven or eight hours of sleep and the Dixons all feel a little bit more energized now than they have for the past first months of Eli's life because of it.

Eli gives a gummy smile up at his daddy and Daryl smiles down at him in return.

"You got your knife?" Daryl asks, looking to Beth.

"Yes."

"How were you plannin' on fightin' off a walker while wearin' a baby sling?" Daryl wonders.

Beth opens her mouth to give an answer, but then, once realizing that she doesn't necessarily _have_ an answer, her mouth closes again and she reaches out, slapping Daryl in the chest when he breaks into smirk because he knows it. He takes her hand and presses a kiss to the palm, making Beth blush and smile softly, before taking his crossbow off from his back and swinging it into his hands.

"Alrigh', le's go," he says, cocking his head towards the gate door.

"You're coming with?" Beth raises her eyebrows.

"Nah. I figured there's nothin' wrong with sendin' my wife and our baby out there in the woods without a good way to defend themselves. Wha' could possibly go wrong?"

Beth frowns. "You don't have to be so sarcastic," she grumbles and Daryl smirks again, pushing the gate open himself and then stepping aside, letting Beth go through it first and him following after.

As soon as the gate is shut firmly behind them, they begin walking and Beth inhales a deep breath of fresh air. She tilts her head upwards and looks at the sunshine filtering through the tree leaves above their heads. The birds are chirping their songs and the breeze blowing is cool and gentle and refreshing.

Yes, she has been out of the cabin and in the yard during the past four months, but being out here, in the woods on their mountain, this feels like she's finally free once again.

"Look, Eli," Beth says as she pauses, slipping her basket handle into the crook of her elbow and then gently lifting Eli from the sling so she can hold him in her arms. "This is a low-elevation pine forest," she tells him, pointing to the pine trees around them. "And then, as you go further up, you find the chestnut oak trees."

Eli blinks at the trees as if he's understanding everything his mama is saying.

Daryl smiles a little. "Ain't he a lil' too young still to start gettin' botany lessons?"

Beth smiles back at him. "Never too young to start that."

She kisses Eli on his plump cheek and situates him into the sling once more, smiling as she feels his warm little body against her chest. She looks to Daryl to find he's already looking at her and her smile remains on her face; Daryl seems to easily be able to return it.

"So, what are we out here for?" Daryl asks once they have begun walking again.

"About time we can start picking strawberries and unless you want one right on top of the other, I need to pick us more Queen Anne's Lace," Beth answers.

That makes Daryl smile a little. "You sayin' you don't feel like pushin' another one out so soon?" He teases.

"And just for that, I'm now ignoring you," Beth quips and Daryl chuckles.

They find some Queen Anne's Lace growing against a fence and Daryl keeps watch as Beth picks picking enough for both herself and Rosita, gathering it all in her basket, occasionally looking down to Eli in the sling to make sure he's still alright, but Eli is a good, quiet baby – just like Aiden was a good, quiet baby and she wonders if babies born in this new world are born with the natural knowledge that this is a world that they must be quiet in.

She begins humming a soft song, getting distracted with picking as she keeps looking down to Eli. And soon, her humming leads into singly softly to him.

 _"_ _Come a little bit closer,_

 _Hear what I have to say._

 _Just like children sleeping,_

 _We could dream this away._

 _But there's a full moon rising,_

 _Let's go dancing in the light._

 _We know where the music's playing,_

 _Let's go out and feel the night."_

Beth lifts her eyes from Eli to look at Daryl. He's standing there, watching her; listening. And when Beth meets his eyes, she gives him a smile, feeling her cheeks warm and she's not sure if it's the sun overhead or if it's the way Daryl is looking at her right now – his eyes dark and intense and looking at nothing, but her.

 _"_ _Because I'm still in love with you,_

 _I want to see you dance again._

 _Because I'm still in love with you,_

 _On this harvest moon." *_

She hardly gets the last word out before Daryl has lifted a hand to her cheek and he bends down, giving her a kiss. Beth hears herself moan softly as Daryl's facial hair scratches her face gently and Daryl smirks a little, pulling back.

"Guess it _is_ a good thing you wanted to come out here and pick more of this stuff," he says.

Beth puts her hands on his cheeks and pulls his face back down to hers for another kiss.

…

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 **Thank you very much for reading!**

 *** song is "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young.**


	4. Matt & Carrie

**I had an idea for this story. From now on, each chapter will focus on one of the relationships between two of the people in the family. If there's a particular relationship you want to read, just let me know! Thank you!**

* * *

…

"Daddy?"

"Princess?" Matt replies and Carrie, from her place on the overturned bucket, smiles.

He doesn't lift his head and she waits until he's finished cutting around the lamb's legs, not wanting to distract him.

Two days ago, they had sheered all of their other sheep, spring already upon them and the sheep more than eager to rid themselves of their heavy wool coats. But just as they were ready to get started on the last, a walker had stumbled against their fence, scaring all of their animals half-to-death even though Daryl had taken care of it within seconds. Still, the last remaining sheep had been too excited and Matt and Anna knew that they wouldn't be able to sheer it without injuring it.

This morning, after breakfast, Matt had gone out to the barn to finish the job and Carrie had followed after him. She knows that when she's older, this will be something her parents teach her how to do. The care of the animals is all of the family's responsibility, but most of it falls onto her parents; Matt and Anna being their main caregivers and Carrie knows that the job will someday be on her shoulders.

She likes watching her daddy sheer the sheep. Her mom helps, but for the most part, it's her daddy's job. He is so good at it, he can do it fairly quick and make it look easy to boot and he is able to get the fleece off in one huge piece. The coats from the other sheep are stacked in a pile near the door of the barn, waiting to be beat and spun by Rosita for wool so she can knit more things for their next winter. It's a cycle. They keep their sheep alive, fed and happy, Matt sheers their coats, Rosita takes their coats and from the wool, she makes the family sweaters, scarfs, mitten, hats and anything else they need to keep themselves cold during the sometimes brutal mountain winters. And then, in the spring, it starts all over.

"How'd you get so good at this?" She asks once Matt gently turns the sheep over, holding it between his legs as he begins cutting the coat from its back.

No one's better at sheering sheep than her daddy. Not even mom.

Matt smiles a little. "A lot of practice. First time I held the sheers, I was pretty sure I was going to stab myself and the sheep at the same time. Your mom taught me how to do it."

"And Uncle Mulligan taught her," Carrie smiles, proud that she knows that part of the story.

"That's right," Matt smiles, too.

"Did you ever meet Uncle Mulligan?" She asks even though she already knows.

"Unfortunately, I didn't," Matt shakes his head, his sheers moving quickly, but carefully. "He passed away while your mom was still a young girl and then I met her a few years after that."

"I wish I could have met him," Carrie sighs and it's something she's said more than once, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Matt lifts his head enough to give her a small smile. "Me, too."

"And Aunt Carrie. What about her?" Carrie wonders, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her chin on her fists.

She loves hearing about her Aunt Carrie and knows that she's named for her daddy's sister. They were twins – like Jack and Cecily – but she had died long Before. Daddy only talks about her sometimes. Mom says that it still hurts him too much to talk about his sister that much, but anytime he does talk about her, Carrie soaks up every word.

Daddy has said before that she looks like the first Carrie did – with her black hair and big brown eyes and skin that's lightly tanned even in the winter. Daddy says that they have Mexican in their blood. Aiden, Bee and Teddy have a bit of that, too, from Rosita though Aiden, Bee and Teddy all have chestnut brown hair rather than black. Spencer likes to joke that his genes are just stronger. Rosita always rolls her eyes and calls him an idiot – she does that a lot – but she is always smiling when she does.

Matt doesn't answer right away. With a few more quick, precise moves of the sheers, he finishes and he gives the lamb a rub on its head.

"Good girl," he murmurs to her and releases the lamb.

The animal immediately shakes herself off from the ordeal and then goes trotting outside to join the rest of their flock, spending the day in their yard. Matt takes the fleece and shakes it out before going to pile it onto the stack with the rest. He then turns and goes back to his daughter, sitting down on the ground next to her. Carrie slips off of her bucket so she can sit on the ground right next to him.

"Am I anything like her?" Carrie wonders, looking at her daddy, wondering – hoping – that today, he'll want to talk about his sister. She thinks that if he talked about her more, Carrie wouldn't ask like she does.

Matt looks at her for a moment – a long moment of his eyes studying her and Carrie stays perfectly still.

He then smiles faintly. "You're a lot like her. It amazes me, actually, how much you're like her and you were never able to meet her."

Carrie beams at that; proud as if she's accomplished something truly great like how Aiden can catch a fish with his bare hands or Eli can kill a rabbit a fifty yards away with his bow and arrow or how all of their parents can… well, do pretty much anything.

"You love art like her," Matt says, stretching his legs out in front of him and Carrie mirrors him. "Our mom bought her coffee table books… really big books of all sorts of artists' works and I remember that she would lay on her stomach with the books open in front of her and she would look at them for hours."

"Was Andrew Wyeth her favorite?" Carrie asks.

"Yep," Matt smiles at both the memory and his daughter. "Just like you."

Carrie smiles, too, but then it fades slowly as she keeps looking at her daddy. "Do you get sad when you look at me?" She asks quietly. "Is that why you don't talk about her? Because I'm like her?"

"Hey," Matt says gently and he picks her up enough to set her on his lap. She's seven and probably too old for it, but Carrie doesn't care. "Before I met your mom and before we had you, Carrie was the most important person in the world to me. I love that you're so much like her because it makes me think like maybe, she's still somewhere, looking in on all of us."

Carrie smiles a little at that.

"I just miss her. I'm always going to miss her. It's like with baby Ruby. No one talks about her, but that doesn't mean that Daryl and Beth don't think about her and don't miss her every single day."

Carrie nods. Baby Ruby had died years before – her cross behind the barn where she's buried alongside Uncle Mulligan and Mick, the dog who once lived here, too. Daryl and Beth still visit her every morning and in the spring and summer, they lay fresh flowers down at her cross.

Daddy's right. No one talks about Baby Ruby.

"That's how I am with your Aunt Carrie. It just hurts when I talk about her. That doesn't mean that I'm not thinking about her or that I hate when you ask about her. It's just hard for me to talk about her sometimes without getting sad. I think it will always be like that."

Carrie leans her head against his shoulder. "I don't want to make you sad," she says quietly.

Matt smiles faintly and with his arms around her, he hugs her tight. "How can I be sad when I have you?"

…

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 **Thank you very much for reading and please take a moment to review.**


	5. Daryl & Beth

…

It's been a quiet morning between them, but the instant Beth stops walking – though she's behind him – Daryl seems to sense it immediately and he stops as well, turning to look back at her and see what's wrong. Over the past few weeks, with just the two of them, walking aimlessly, going from one shitty shelter to another while still on the lookout for _any_ of their family, they've become close enough for Daryl to be able to read her whether she talks or not.

Daryl wonders if Beth can do the same with him.

Deep down, he finds himself actually hoping that she can. The idea of Beth Greene being able to read him is something, Daryl thinks, he wouldn't mind at all.

"Everythin' alrigh'?" He asks, stepping back towards her.

Beth gives a nod, not looking at him, and Daryl turns his head to see what she's looking at instead. They're walking through some small town – a nameless small town like the dozen others they've already walked through; absolutely nothing to differentiate one from the next.

"Do you mind if we go in here real quick?" Beth asks, finally turning her head towards him.

Daryl can't help, but frown. It's not like they're on a schedule or anything, but he can't be blamed for thinking that stopping anywhere in this town will just be a big old waste of time.

"You know they're prob'ly all cleared out?"

"I know," Beth agrees. "I promise. Just a quick look."

Daryl hesitates for another moment more before he heads towards the store's double front glass doors and Beth is right behind him, her fingers curled around the hilt of her knife, hanging from her belt. He makes sure his crossbow is loaded and locked, ready to go, and Beth bangs against the glass with her fist. They then wait for a minute, hearing the ever-familiar growl and shuffle from inside. Both peer through the door and see the walker coming up one of the aisles from the back of the store, heading their way.

Moving towards the large store front window that had long ago been crashed into, Daryl shoots and a bolt sails into the air, landing right into the walker's head. They wait another moment, but it seems as if that's the one and only walker in the store. Daryl glances back to Beth before he climbs up onto the window's ledge and drops into the store on the other side. He immediately turns and holds his hand out, finding a place on Beth's elbow as she crawls through the window after him.

As expected, everything is pretty much gone, just a few odds and ends left, scattered across the shelves.

"Lookin' for anything in particular?" He asks and for a second, he wonders if she's looking for tampons. Those have gotten to be something that's damn hard to find. The prison had had a whole bunch for all of the women living there, but obviously, the supply had been left behind along with everything else.

Has it been a month since the prison? Not that he knows Beth's schedule. Why the hell would he know that? He just wonders if that what they're looking for and if she'll actually tell him if it is. She's probably too embarrassed to tell him if it is her time of the month, but Daryl doesn't see the need to be embarrassed. It ain't her fault and besides, after everything else they've seen and done in this world, what's a little bit more blood to add to it?

"I'll be right back," Beth says without answering his question and Daryl watches as she heads up the main aisle as if she knows exactly where she's going.

Daryl hesitates, wondering if he should give her some space, but he admits that he _is_ curious as to why Beth had wanted to come into this drugstore and there's nothing else for him to look through anyway.

He follows after her and Beth doesn't tell him to go away.

She stops at the cash register and on pegs, hanging on the front of the counter, there's just a few things left. A couple packs of shower caps. A pair of flip flops in plastic packaging. And a pair of gel insoles.

Beth releases a breath that sounds like relief and she takes the insoles, testing them with the pads of her thumbs.

Daryl can't help, but frown. "Are your feet hurtin'?" He asks. He also wants to ask why the hell she hadn't said anything sooner, but he's able to swallow that question down though he thinks it's a very good question.

He's learned something about Beth and that is, for the most part, she doesn't like to complain. Girl could be walking with those cowboy boots of her, filled with blood, and she probably wouldn't make a peep. Not to him anyway. And Daryl knows that that's his fault. Even after their fight and mutual understanding and spending all of this time together, getting more and more comfortable with one another, Beth still wants to proves to him that she's not weak or a burden; as if he still thinks that.

Beth shrugs. "Just rubbing a little. It's no big deal. I think this will help with the calluses-"

"You got calluses, too?"

"It's okay, Daryl," she tries to assure him, but Daryl's not having it. "Daryl!" Beth lets out a shriek of surprise when Daryl doesn't think about what he's doing.

He grabs Beth from under her arms and sets her down onto the counter like she's a sack of flour.

"Daryl, what are you doing?" She demands to know.

And that's also a very good question.

Daryl doesn't answer her though. He pulls off one of her cowboy boots and then peels off her dirty and slightly sweaty sock, Beth wincing as he does and he gets a good look at one of her feet. Red and rubbed raw on the heel as well as on the bottom. Every single step she has taken would have hurt like a bitch.

And she hadn't even whimpered in complaint.

But she's whimpering now when one of his hands touches her foot as gently as he can.

Daryl exhales a heavy sigh and then lifts his eyes to look at her. Beth looks embarrassed. And a little ashamed, too. As if this is her fault. And not telling him about this _is_ her fault, but it's not her fault that her cowboy boots weren't made to be walked endless miles in.

"Alrigh'," he says quietly, quickly planning. "We'll stay here for now. Should be a storage room or somethin' in the back. And we ain't leavin' this town until we find you another pair of shoes."

He wants to tell her that she's going to have to talk to him about things going on with her because – and he's still coming to understand this completely himself – he wants to take care of her and make sure that she's alright.

Knowing Beth, she'll probably make a retort of how she'll talk to him about things if he talks to her, too, about things going on with him. Actually, Daryl doesn't doubt that that's exactly the kind of response Beth would give him.

Daryl thinks, if she said that, he wouldn't mind at all.

…

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 **Thank you very much for reading and please take a moment to review!**


	6. Rosita & Bee

…

The instant Rosita holds a seconds-old Bee in her arms, the baby screaming her head off and Rosita crying herself at just the relief and joy of having a beautiful, _healthy_ baby girl, she realizes how much she misses her own mom in that moment.

Beth is still at the foot of the bed, cleaning her up, as Rosita and Spencer gaze upon their daughter.

"What should we name her?" Spencer asks, looking up from their baby to Rosita's face, tears in his own eyes to match hers.

The name comes suddenly to Rosita; so suddenly, it surprises her. "Beatrice," she speaks it out loud and for a moment, it almost sounds like a foreign word on her tongue because not only has she not thought it or heard it for so long, she certainly hasn't spoken it in the same amount of time.

Spencer looks at her, openly curious, but he doesn't ask; not yet anyway. "Beatrice," he repeats and gazes at her for a moment before back down to their daughter. "What do you think?" He asks the baby, having quieted down now that she has settled in the warmth of her mother's arms. "Do you feel like a Beatrice?" He asks her in his most serious tone and Rosita lets out a soft laugh. Their daughter's face seems to remain impassive to the whole discussion. "Beatrice it is," Spencer declares and he kisses the newly-named Beatrice on her head, not minding the blood they still have to wash off. He then looks to Rosita. "You're amazing," he then says in a hushed, awe-filled tone.

Again, fresh tears sweep Rosita's eyes, but she still manages a smile and a shrug and Spencer wraps his arm around her shoulders and brushes his lips across her sweat-matted hair.

Rosita always had a good relationship with her mom – even when Rosita was running around, spending time with boys that she knew her mom definitely didn't approve of. She honestly considered Beatrice Espinosa to be one of her best friends. No matter how late she had been out on Saturday night, every Sunday morning, Rosita would go to church with her mom and Beatrice had taught her how to sew and mend and also, how to be as tough as nails because they had lived in a world where Beatrice felt that a girl should do both.

And that is what Rosita decides to do with her own daughter.

They all learn this quickly with Aiden and then Eli and when Beatrice comes along, it's still true. The kids in this new world, especially on their farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains, all grow up too fast so it becomes important to the adults that they try to keep the kids just that for as long as they possibly can. But when it comes to teaching them, the kids far exceed the things kids of the old world knew.

By the age of four, Beatrice, almost immediately nicknamed Bee, can thread a needle and can properly sew buttons back onto shirts. She helps in their massive garden, pulling weeds and picking crops, and she knows how to milk the goats and collect the eggs and she doesn't balk when it's her turn to help with shoveling up animal manure. She also knows the proper way of making a fist and her first lesson in self-defense is kicking someone between their legs – male or female – and she knows to never step outside, not even their own backdoor into their own yard, without her knife strapped to her hip.

But, she's also a girl – the family's first little girl because even when Anna _had_ been a little girl, she had already seen too much and done too much and she was no longer little at all. But Bee, they decide that despite everything else they're teaching her, they want her to stay a little girl for as long as she can.

Rosita encourages her with smiles when Bee wants to wear her cat-ears headband every single day and she loves the color pink and playing with dolls and reading about fairy tales. For most of her life and even in the mere months before Bee was born, Rosita had never thought that not only would she have a daughter, but that she would be a good mother to a daughter. She honestly hadn't envisioned having children at all, but when she gave birth to Aiden, it had made sense to her because as a boy, Rosita just thought that this world made much more sense for boys than girls and she thought that she could show so much more things to a son than a daughter.

But then Bee comes and Rosita loves her within a split second and Bee teaches them all, especially Rosita, that even with wanting to wear pink and wanting to skip rope when she doesn't have school or chores, this world is as much as hers as it is anyone's.

At night, after Bee changes into her pajamas and Rosita brushes out the braids that Bee wears her hair in every day, Bee then climbs in under her blankets in bed and Rosita sits down beside her.

"Which one tonight?" Rosita asks about the book Bee has chosen to read before going to sleep. She smiles when she sees Bee's choice. "Again?" She then asks.

"Yep," Bee nods and then she begins to read out loud to Rosita.

 _"_ _There once was an old nanny goat who had seven little baby goats, and she loved them just like a mother loves her children. One day she was about to leave for the woods to gather food, and she called all seven kids to hear and said, "Dear children, I am going out into the woods to forage. But be on your guard against the wolf! If he gets inside, he will eat you up limb by limb. The villain can disguise himself well, but you'll always be able to recognize him by his husky voice and his black feet."_

"Mama?" Bee stops reading to look up to Rosita and Rosita, who has been resting her cheek on top of Bee's head and combing fingers through her hair, lifts her head so she can look down to her daughter. "Not all wolves are bad though."

Rosita smiles. "No, that's very true. We have Lily, Buck and Spitz, and they love us as much as we love them, but what does Daryl always remind you?"

"They're wild animals and sometimes, the wild is too strong to tame," Bee recites what is often said.

"That's right."

"But walkers are in the wild and walkers are _always_ bad," Bee then states.

"Always," Rosita grows very serious now. "And you always remember that. What do you do when you see a walker?" She asks.

"I kick them in the knees so they fall and while they're confused, I go behind them and stab them in the head," Bee says, reciting once again what is said more than anything else to the children.

Rosita is smiling again and she kisses Bee on the head. "That's right."

"Mama? Tomorrow, when we go pick apples, can we practice?" Bee asks.

"Taking down a walker?" Rosita clarifies and Bee nods. "If we can find one, of course we can practice." She smiles and kisses Bee on the head and Bee smiles, too, before resuming her reading.

In this world, Rosita has learned that a girl can do both and _should_ be able to do both – pick apples and kill walkers and hum a song while doing it.

…

* * *

 **Thank you very much for reading!**


	7. Daryl & Beth & the Twins

...

Over the past few years, Daryl has made a few changes to their tree house. He built stairs in lieu of a ladder and the first floor deck, he had enclosed and insulated, making it a bedroom for him and Beth.

That is where Beth is this evening, putting hers and Daryl's bed together again after having washed the bedding that morning and the sheets and quilt had been on the line, drying in the sun for the afternoon. The basket at the bottom of the stairs is the bedding for Eli's bed and the twins' bunk beds, also washed this morning and now dried. Up the stairs, Beth can hear the twins laughing as they play and Beth smiles as she folds the final quilt over the foot of their bed.

Outside, the soft tapping of rain can be heard on the roof above her head and the window is open a crack, allowing the gentle and refreshing breeze from outside into the room. It's a quiet night. Thankfully, they have so many of those, but Beth knows that if she was to stand at the window and wait, eventually, she would see Matt walking the fence. They always have someone on guard duty – just in case. They are always vigilant against the walkers that are rare on their side of the mountain as well as people who might stumble upon their farm. They know they are isolated, but they never rest in keeping it so.

Once she has hers and Daryl's bed back together again, Beth takes the basket and heads up the stairs, her eyes instantly landing upon her husband. Daryl sits on the floor in black jeans, a black sweatshirt, the collar of a white tee-shirt he has layered beneath poking out, and he wears wool socks on his feet – one of the many pairs that Rosita has made for everyone in their family.

They're dressed alike today – Beth wearing black jeans and a black cable-knit sweater – and when she had first seen it this morning, she had smiled as if it was one of the best things to happen to her.

His eyes are closed and Beth knows exactly what he's doing. She then looks for the children. Eli, twelve, is sitting up in his bed, reclined back against the headboard and reading a book, smiling a little to himself and Beth wonders if it's from the words in front of him or from the twins. Five-year-old Jack and Cecily are creeping around the big room, trying to be as quiet as they can, sometimes having to clap hands over their mouths to mask their giggles.

"Daddy!" Ceci exclaims, sitting up on her knees and shouting from behind the wood stove in the middle of the room and Daryl instantly whips his head in her direction, his eyes remaining closed.

"Daddy!" Jack shouts out next, this time from on top of the bench at the table in their kitchen nook.

Daryl turns his head in the right direction and the twins both move in different spots of the big room to shout at Daryl from next.

These worries of Daryl's began about six years earlier, when Beth had been pregnant with the twins, and Beth supposes it's not a far-fetched worry to have, but it's still one she admits she's not ready to accept yet. If Daryl _is_ losing his hearing, then of course, they will all deal with it head on as they do with everything else, but Daryl losing his hearing is just not something that Beth can even fathom.

Eli can hunt – Daryl has made sure of that and he's already teaching the twins as well – and over the years, others have picked up on tracking, but they still depend on Daryl for so much and in this world – this frightening and uncertain world – how can someone who can't hear survive it?

In the beginning, it had still been too loud. There had still been guns and he and Rick had fired them off too close to one another without thinking of their ears. Beth has to wonder if Rick – wherever he is – is experiencing the same thing with his own hearing.

"Daddy!" Ceci calls out, the little girl having climbed onto Eli's bed with him.

Daryl pauses and they all see him do so. Beth stands at the top of the stairs, watching him, and she realizes that she's clutching the laundry basket and holding her breath. And when Daryl finally turns his head towards Cecily on Eli's bed, Beth exhales softly.

She watches with a smile as Jack crawls across the floor, having seen Beth and coming towards her. He is crawling too loudly and Daryl is following his movements, turning his head and watching him with closed eyes, able to hear the boy's knees on the hard wood.

"Try again, Jack," Daryl tells him as Jack continues crawling towards Beth.

At the last moment, Jack pushes himself to his feet and in his socks, he crosses the room – silent this time – and throws himself behind the privacy curtain where their bathroom bucket is.

"Daddy!" Jack then yells.

Daryl smiles. "Better," he says in Jack's direction and Beth smiles as Jack laughs happily.

"Hey," Beth says in a quiet voice and Daryl's eyes instantly snap open.

The instant he sees her standing there, he gives her that small smile of his and Beth instantly returns it, feeling her heart squeeze in her chest like it does so many other times; usually whenever Daryl smiles at her. Even after all of these years together and after everything they've already been through together, Daryl still smiles at her every time he sees her.

Maybe a night will come when Beth says something to him – either "Hey" or "I love you" and he won't be able to hear her. Maybe it will be just one of those things. As he gets older, maybe it will keep fading until it's gone completely.

Beth knows it can happen or it won't and there's nothing any of them can do about it.

But as long as Daryl always smiles at her like he smiles at her – in this moment and all of the moments – Beth isn't going to worry about anything else. Not yet anyway.

…

* * *

 **Thank you!**


	8. Matt & Anna

…

He knew what some, if not all of them, probably thought when Anna first brought him back to her family's farm with her. It wouldn't surprise him if, deep down, Anna maybe thought the same thing.

They all thought he was using her. Anna was a pretty girl, more capable than a lot of the people left in this world, and they probably thought he latched onto her because she was his best shot at keeping himself alive and also, he could use her to keep his bed warm at night.

She was younger than him, but that didn't mean anything when it came to them. Matt had fallen into a group of people who didn't do anything to learn or adapt to this new world. They took and took and took and rarely did anything for themselves. Anna had been in the Appalachian Mountains since she was a young girl and her family settled here. She had learned everything about plants and what was safe to eat and what could be used for medicine. She knew everything there was to know about animals and how to care for them and she knew how to farm and can food for winter and how to knit. Her parents – Beth, Daryl, Aaron, Spencer and Rosita – taught her everything as they, themselves, learned.

If anything, their age difference didn't matter because Matt was always aware of how much of a dead weight he was around her neck. But she took him under her wing anyway and as they walked the mountain range their first summer together, she taught him about the plants they gathered and how to clean a fish they caught in the river. And on the bank of that river, after they had both taken turns bathing themselves in the creek and were now drying in the sun, Matt listened to Anna as she sang a song that came from the mountains, too, as she worked on untangling a knot in Spitz's fur.

It was next to that creek that Matt knew he was falling in love with her.

She was sixteen and he was in his twenties and he knew he had no right to even be spending any amount of time let alone having actual feelings for her, but if anyone asked – and they all did, at one time or another – Matt knew that it was in that spot, in that moment, that he was developing real feelings for her.

And it wasn't because she was the most skillful, bad-ass woman he had ever met; even more so than any of the other savior women ever were. She was smart and brave and she had a good heart. Matt knew that falling in love with this girl would be inevitable. It would be amazing if he had spent all of those weeks with her, talking with her and learning from her while learning _about_ her, and _not_ fall in love.

After she turned eighteen – or around that time – they had had the simplest of ceremonies of them going for a walk alone and stopping to stand under a persimmon tree. Matt gave her a ring and told her that he loved her and wanted to be her husband. Anna had smiled with tears brimming over her eyes and as he slid the ring onto her finger, she told him that she loved him and wanted to be his wife.

There were no more priests or preachers or churches. This was how people got married in this new world. They made vows to one another and the man slid the ring onto the woman's finger and they kissed. And after Matt and Anna did those things, they were now married as officially as a couple could be these days.

The whole family knew what they were going to do when they had gone for a walk and when they had gotten back into their fenced-in farm, everyone was waiting for them. Hugs and kisses and a wedding feast followed and then, Matt and Anna went into the little cabin they had all built, attached to the barn.

Matt made sure he told Anna that he loved her as often as he could; worried that the others – though they were as much of his family now, too – still thought that he was still just using her. He was worried that _Anna_ thought that he was just using her.

He felt completely inept to be the guy with Anna, to be honest, and had confessed as much to her. He confessed that to her on more than one occasion and each time, Anna would frown and her forehead would wrinkle, not understanding what he was talking about. He had to be taught everything by everyone and when he first got to the farm, even the kids – Aiden, Eli and Bee – knew how to do so much more than him. Anna should have found herself someone far more useful than him – and he silently wondered, at first, if she was using _him_ to keep her bed warm.

But he knew that wasn't the truth of it. Anna loved him. She said it to him as much as he said it to her – both trying so hard to convince the other that in this new world, they were perfect for each other and what he couldn't do, she could and vice-versa.

"That's why we work," Anna said, sitting on a bucket in the barn and watching him sheer the sheep.

Over the years, Matt had worked hard, determined to get real good at one chore on this farm and this was what he did. The others helped him, but Matt was the one to take the sheep shears and cut their wool coats off in the spring. It was a hard job and took days for all of the sheep they had now, but he felt this was the least he could do. This was his contribution to this farm and this family and as Anna's husband.

Matt lifted his eyes to look at her and she gave him a smile.

"I'm crap at sheering the sheep and where would I be without you?" She wondered.

Matt's response was on his tongue as it always was whenever Anna said that.

 _You could have found someone who could do more than sheer sheep._

But he never said it; still scared, after all of this time, that if he said it, it would, somehow, come true. He wondered if it would always be like this; working for the rest of his life to show the others and her that he was good enough to be Anna's husband.

He wondered if he would spend the rest of his life, working to prove to himself that he wasn't a dead anchor around his wife's neck.

…

* * *

 **Thank you very much for reading! As always, you can imagine whoever you want while reading, but I've always imagined DJ Cotrona as Matt and Elle Fanning as Anna.**


	9. Beth & Ruby

…

When Beth had first lost her – though she doesn't understand that phrase since she didn't _lose_ her and knows exactly what happened to her – she dreamt of her daughter nearly every night for the months that followed. Dreams that had her seeing the rest of her pregnancy, feeling her baby girl still growing inside of her, turning over, doing somersaults as Eli had once done, alive and well.

Beth would wake up from these dreams with such an ache in her chest, she couldn't do anything except lay in bed and cry quietly into her pillow. Daryl seemed to always know when she was awake – and crying; as if he was awake, too, but hadn't been able to reach for her sooner. He would roll to her and gather her in his arms and hold her until her eyes were dry.

But then, almost always, her hand would drift down to her flat middle and from the dream, she had had such a big baby bump, and the tears would start to flow again.

Around what would have been the time Ruby _should_ have been born, Beth begins having nightmares. Nightmares of her baby girl being born alive, but being born a walker, so she wasn't alive at all despite her moving around in her arms as Beth held her; nightmares of her baby having to be killed.

(She knows that Anna had been the one to put the knife through stillborn baby Ruby's head, but they never talk about it and sometimes, Beth will just hold onto Anna's hand and Anna will squeeze back and maybe, for them, they don't have to talk about it because they do that.)

She wakes up from those nightmares with screams, flying up into a sitting position, panting and sweating, and Daryl – as always – is right there, his arms around her as he tries to calm her down again. She collapses in tears and always apologizes to him because she's _such_ a mess.

"You don't ever apologize for that again," Daryl tells her, his lips to her temple and his arms tight around her, not letting her go, even when they lay down again.

For the next few days, Eli sleeps down in the cabin and _that_ makes Beth cry because she's screaming from her nightmares and scaring her little boy and she doesn't care what Daryl tells her. She _is_ a mess and she just needs to get over it. Ruby died. Nothing is going to change that. She still has a husband and a son and they have made _such_ a good life for themselves in these mountains with the rest of their family. They're safe and they have food and shelter and they're all alive and healthy. In this new world, nothing much more can be asked for than that. Ruby died, but so many people – countless people – have died.

Beth tells herself all of these things, over and over again, and she practically _orders_ herself to get over it. They have all lost people they love and they've all been able to move on.

(Except somedays, Aaron is so taken over with grief and ache for Eric, he's not able to leave his room for an entire day, but it's not like it happens constantly so why does Beth keep holding onto grief for a baby that didn't even make it past her sixth month of pregnancy?)

She scolds herself when she thinks of Ruby; when, in her mind, Beth envisions Ruby growing up as each year passes and she imagines how old Ruby would be now. She could have grown to look like Eli – with his dark hair and dark eyes and his skin always tan from working and playing outside for all hours of sunlight. But Beth likes to imagine Ruby differently – with blonde hair and blue eyes and delicate pale skin. Beth likes to imagine little Ruby in the garden with her, Beth teaching her all of the vegetables and herbs they grow; all of the flowers that can help them with various aches and pains; even the barks of trees they use for the same.

She scolds herself because _years_ pass and every morning, Beth visits Ruby's grave behind the barn, buried alongside Mulligan and Mick, Mulligan's dog, and some mornings, Beth still breaks down and cries.

She has had two more children since Ruby's death – the twins, Jack and Cecily. For a half a minute, she and Daryl had thought to name their second daughter, Ruby, before they quickly moved on from that idea. Ruby may not have even been born alive, but she was still a person – her _own_ person – and this second daughter will be her own person, too, who doesn't deserve to live in a shadow of someone who came before her.

When they first came to these mountains and began living with Mulligan, the man had a fiddle. He didn't play it all of the time because though the mountain they live on is fairly isolated, none of them still wanted to live, making too much noise. But in the winter, when walkers moved slower and people hunkered down wherever they were to get through the cold months, Mulligan would play then.

There was one old mountain song he played – _Ruby with the Eyes that Sparkle_. When Mulligan died, Spencer – who had had violin lessons another lifetime ago – became the one who would sometimes play the fiddle, but that song was one he couldn't learn and that music had died with Mulligan.

But Beth can still hear it so perfectly in her head – even after all of this time. Her baby girl's song. There are no words – just melody – and Beth will find herself humming it when she's in the garden or in the kitchen and she'll wonder how much more time will pass before her eyes don't flood with tears when she stops and realizes that she's humming _that_ song.

Everyone – Daryl especially – tells her that she's not on a timeline. She can mourn Ruby for the rest of her life and _no one_ will think that she shouldn't.

"I feel like I shouldn't," Beth confesses to Daryl one morning when they're both at Ruby's grave.

"What do you mean?" Daryl asks with a frown.

"There's an ache," she rubs her hand on her chest; over her heart. "Some days, it's so dull, I don't even really notice it, but some days… I just feel like they're shouldn't be an ache at all. Not after all of this time."

Daryl's quiet for a moment, looking at Ruby's name carved onto the cross. "I've got the same ache," he confesses and Beth's eyes fly to look at him because Beth has learned that Daryl keeps it to himself when it comes to Ruby. "I miss her, too, Beth. Every day. And no one is _ever_ goin' to tell me that I can't miss my daughter anymore."

Beth leans into him then and wraps her arms around his shoulders, hugging him, and Daryl's arms wind around her, nearly tugging her into his lap.

"You're right," Beth whispers.

"I know," Daryl replies easily and Beth lets out a laugh, tightening her arms around him. "What do I tell you?" He then asks and he doesn't need to specify even though he tells her a lot of things.

Beth closes her eyes and presses her nose to her husband's shoulder. In her mind, she can begin to hear _Ruby with the Eyes that Sparkle_ playing. "We're not on a timeline."

…

* * *

 **I cried a ridiculous amount while writing this chapter. Ruby always does that to me. I'll be writing a Daryl/Ruby chapter, too. I will also have a Ruby inspiration picture posted on my tumblr.**

 **THANK YOU so much for reading!**


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